Has the internet changed the nature of the way shopping occurs in stores these days? more
To a society fascinated with the process of buying and consumption, a great retail experience should be of significant importance; yet despite the fact that 90% of dollars are spent “in store,” the media are crowded with stories and analysis of “online experience” but scant mention is made of the ways in which we can improve the “in-store” experience for consumers.
In a recent report by Gartner on some of their predictions for the coming year they mentioned "context will be as important to mobile consumer services and relationships as search engines are to the Web. Whereas search provides the "key" to organizing information and services for the Web, context will provide the "key" to delivering hyperpersonalized experiences across smartphones and any session or experience an end user has with information technology. Context will center on observing patterns, particularly location, presence and social interactions. Furthermore, whereas search was based on a "pull" of information from the Web, context-enriched services will, in many cases, prepopulate or push information to users."
This is good news for Presence Marketing - you need to provide not just the content but the context before you push it to the user - which is exactly the basis for what we call Presence Marketing.
As you recall from our previous blog Presence Marketing enables a brand company to market directly to its consumers within a physical retail environment. It is based on two important concepts: The first is “Presence Identification”, that is the identification of a customer upon entry in a physical retail environment. The second is “session-metrics” defined as the shopping pattern of a customer in a physical store including time of entry/exit, departments visited, time spent, products tried.
Consider the following example to illustrate. If P&G wants to provide a discount on Tide detergent it could use something like an in-store shelf talker mounted near the shelves which carry the Tide product. The shelf-talker would present a coupon to every shopper who walks past the aisle. It has been reported that 60% of these types of promos actually cannibalize a brands own sales because it has no "context"! So someone who was going to buy Tide and was willing to pay full price now gets it at a discount. In contrast Presence Marketing would take into consideration the "context" of the shopper’s transaction history. So if the customer was buying a different brand’s detergent then a coupon could be sent to the customer’s mobile phone based on location, presence and previous shopping history.
Presence Marketing gives marketers a tremendous opportunity to target consumers directly in store and in context. I believe, especially in this economy, Presence Marketing will allow the promise of in-store shopper marketing to be realized and will deliver a quantum increase in marketing ROI!
